


He, whose emptiness is now filled with grief

by Darkapik



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Basically just Sabo's awful life ahah, Canonical Character Death, Feels, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I'm not sorry, angst so much angst, it's ace, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26838196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkapik/pseuds/Darkapik
Summary: Sabo lives with a hole inside his head. It's a black void, never resting. It terrifies him, how much he could have forgotten. It's okay, he tells the others he's really happy here, having caring and funny friends and he is doing somethinggood, something to help because this world is rotten and he doesn't know why buthe knows. It's okay, he says, when someone asks him about the dark circles under his eyes. It's okay, he whispers to himself when he wakes up with a mind full of laughters and forests, a mind full of too clean rooms and disdain everywhere. It's okay, he's happy even if he can't remember.Sabo is a liar.
Relationships: Portgas D. Ace & Sabo
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	He, whose emptiness is now filled with grief

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone. This is my first fanfiction, please be gentle. English isn't my first language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes. This is just pure angts without an hint of comfort so be warned. Thanks for reading!

Sabo lives with a hole inside his head. It's a black void, never resting. It terrifies him, how much he could have forgotten. It's okay, he tells the others he's really happy here, having caring and funny friends and he is doing something _good_ , something to help because this world is rotten and he doesn't know why but _he knows_. It's okay, he says, when someone asks him about the dark circles under his eyes. It's okay, he whispers to himself when he wakes up with a mind full of laughters and forests, a mind full of too clean rooms and disdain everywhere. It's okay, he's happy even if he can't remember.

Sabo is a liar.

It doesn't hurt when he listens to people speaking of their childhood, reminiscing bad or good memories. _It doesn't._  
It doesn't make him cry, when people fall asleep to warm echoes of the past while he's just staring at the ceiling with _empty empty empty_ ringing in his mind, when it feels wrong to sleep in a bed like this but where or how would he sleep instead ? He doesn't know. _He doesn't know._

The wrongness pass with years. He's changed and his heart doesn't ache anymore when he looks at himself in the mirror. He has memories now, finally filling the void inside of him. ~~It's never enough, it will never be, his hearth misses two boys, two brothers.~~ He's ascending very fast through the ranks of the Revolutionnary. His partner, Koala, is all he could ever ask for, clever, strong and she can almost hide the worry in her eyes when his hands shake every time he's too close to a fire even if it's been years, he can't help himself, he flinches and the feelings of _burning burning burning_ spread throughout his body. He loves her like the sister he never had ~~or did he? He still doesn't know and he will probably never.~~ The doctor says his memories will probably not come back, it's been too long and unless something ~~like the death of one of his brothers for example,~~ or someone deblock his mind he will have to live with ten years short. He managed to make it to his room before breaking down. And if doesn't sleep the next night? Well, it's his problem. 

When he is seventeen, an alarm raises in his mind. For what? He can't tell but he's followed all day by the feeling that he should do something but _he doesn't know what._ It itches him in a way he doesn't understand. He pretends not to have seen the worried looks Koala sends him. He's really becoming good at this. Like always, the feeling ease with time and he also ignores the relief in his partner's eyes. She shouldn't be, he is perfectly fine as always.

Sabo is still a liar.

He is looking at one of the superookies poster now, with freckles and dark hair and there's something nibbling at his brain, a little voice screaming ~~Ace Ace Ace!~~ But he doesn't hear it, too busy thinking about the pile of paperwork he has to fill for tomorrow. But there's a scowl on his face and if he frowned more, his eyebrows would touch each other. And if the poster disappeared from his desk the next day when Koala came ? Well, he doesn't have anymore headaches that way.

Sabo stares at the straw hat on his head like it has killed his family. Maybe it has, after all, it's difficult to know the truth when anything before waking up in the infirmary is just a black void screaming empty endlessly. It's just for a covert mission, it's necessary but it has never felt so wrong, he shouldn't be wearing this, it belongs to someone else and ~~please make it go away please take it back don't make me wear this please~~ it's really not his style.

The covert mission is a failure, the first in years and when they're on the run because Sabo couldn't answer to the guard, the first thing he does is throwing the hat away and hope it _burns burns burns._ He immediately regrets this but it's too late, the hat is left in the dust. 

He is so tired. The hole in his head seems to grow with each year passing despite him building the memories he wants and sometimes doesn't. It taunts him, makes him react to completely strange and absurd things. Every time he tries to remember, it dress up a wall made of steel who doesn't even falter when he bang against it with all his strength. It frustrates him to no end but he doesn't care right? He's got all this memories and not knowing ten years isn't that bad right? He's still okay, happy no matter what his mirror says. 

Sabo is becoming a better liar, he trains everyday after all.

When he distractly looks at the poster of the strawhat pirate while flipping through the journal he pauses and smiles the brightest grins he has ever made and the only thought in his head is: _It suited him better anyways._ The smile doesn't leave him for the entire day and if he keeps the poster in his desks even if he doesn't know why well, it's his problem.

The report comes about Marineford in the form of a young man carrying the news, he's feeling really relieved because there's no signs of Iva-chan being dead. The man poses the journal on the table and Sabo grabs one in passing, wanting to know the exact situation. And suddenly, all he sees is _Ace_ and the word _dead_ next to it and then he can't because it can't be, it's simply isn't possible and there's words, there are memories he realises and there are brothers and his void is beginning to fill up, beginning to flood all of the emotions he keeps meticulously separated in boxes and he's _drowning_ he just _can't breathe_ and no matter how wrong the sentence looks it doesn't change, it stays this ugly way with the word **killed** in big letter and there's someone screaming please make him _shut up!_ But he realises that's him who's screaming like he's been killed but it's worse because Ace is _dead_ , he's lying somewhere with a hole instead of flesh, lying somewhere in a puddle of blood while Sabo just screams until his voice has given up, until his throat is raw and feel like someone clawed his way to his heart and he _cries cries cries_ because that's the only thing he can do right now, he _cries cries cries_ with a “i'm gonna show them all...”, a “brother” ringing in his ears and everyone is hurrying at his side while he just wants one person but he's not there and Sabo can't, he can't just continue his life like this and Ace's _dead dead dead dead dead dead._ Everyone is crowding around him, asking him questions but he can't answer because he can't breath and all he sees is blurry probably because he is crying like he is ten years old again with two brothers but one is dead and won't come back. And Sabo?

Sabo burns for a second time. 

The world stops.

And he wakes up suddenly because of course, the world will still turn and works, he is the only one affected, the only one whose world's been broken, chewed and stepped on like it's nothing, like Ace was nothing. Deep down, he knows he's not the only one, he had seen the way the Whitebeards came to war for one of their own but he's just lost his brother and he thinks he can be selfish and don't think about other's pain right now. He wants to cry, he wants to scream angrily at the world for daring to continue existing because Ace is dead and nothing is right anymore, he wants to curl up in a ball and die but more important, he wants his brother, his Ace. 

He gets up, because he has to, he has responsibilities and while his world just ended, there are others worlds, other people he needs to help, other people who need _him_. Koala is here, of course she would be and there's tears in her eyes. She asks him if he will still stay with them and he wants to _laugh laugh laugh_ because now that Ace is dead what else can he do? The world keeps turning and if Sabo's a little broken inside it's not important, it'll be okay he said, it'll be okay. 

But he's still a fucking liar.

Sabo no longer lives with a hole inside his head. Instead, he has a dark pit where the warmth of one of his brothers should be, could be if only he has remembered earlier. He hates himself so much, everytime he looks in the mirror all he can see is ~~a murderer because he killed his brother, let him go to his execution without so much as a glance~~ a man who doesn't seem to sleep very much and he's not okay, he's too damn tired to bother lying to himself anyways. He shouldn't be the one standing, he shouldn't be the one who can still laugh, dream and maybe see his little brother be the Pirate King, _he shouldn't be_. Where he should hear a joyful laugh and see a bright face with freckles like stars, like constellations he used to count before going to sleep, he only sees one grave with a lifeless hat and an occasional gust of wind which almost makes him believes there's still someone but there is nobody, he's alone before that grave and the only sound is the silence broken by his sobs. Sometimes, Sabo wished the hole was still here instead of grief. 

~~Sometimes, he almost wishes to be the one who died.~~


End file.
